In this presentation, Dr. Gade introduces the Qur’an as experienced in diverse Muslim lifeworlds through systems of reading. Explaining how Muslims describe the structure and style of the Arabic Qur’an to be “multifaceted,” we begin to explore how sound and meaning are multilayered intellectually, emotionally, and in embodied religious modes. Key examples come from aestheticized performance (recitation), expert practice (memorization), and theology, law and politics (in the form of recent ecological “readings” of the Qur’an).

Dr. Gade holds a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago Divinity School (1999). She is author of the books, Perfection Makes Practice: Learning, Emotion and the Recited Qur’an in Indonesia (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2004) and The Qur’an: An Introduction (Oxford, U.K.: Oneworld Publications, 2010). She has been teaching a university-level introduction to the Qur’an since 1997. Her current research explores global Muslim religious responses to environmental change (www.vimeo.com/hijau).

"The Qur'an in the World: The Qur'an in Historical Context and Qur'an and Community in the Modern World" lecture series is sponsored by the Center for Middle Eastern and North African Studies, Institute for the Humanities, International Institute, and LSA.

This lecture is cosponsored by the Center for Southeast Asian Studies.